


Purple Lavender Clouds

by Eavans



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Alcohol, Drug Use, Experimental Style, Fluff, General, Homophobia, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Recreational Drug Use, Weed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-27
Updated: 2016-10-27
Packaged: 2018-08-27 06:35:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8390989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eavans/pseuds/Eavans
Summary: “We met through a mutual friend.” Or, the one where Dan and Phil aren’t bitch ass liars and actually met while Dan was a student at Manchester Uni. If you can cue student stress, shitty studio apartments, and copious weed use– you’ve got the right picture.





	

**Author's Note:**

> written in the pov of someone a little altered™ so prepare for some experimental syntax and free association.
> 
> warnings: weed, homophobia, wanting to pitch yourself off a building because of law school, cheap ass rum, etc.  
> ___
> 
> [playlist](https://open.spotify.com/user/eavanmcneil/playlist/1qP02E11ADaeQsG9Cg69iv) esp these songs[x](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjQ2jGUNSck)[ x](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JgVO4stIEgI) [x](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plEm66kqekM) [x](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6gSSsCdFeA) 

It was a warm night. Dan didn’t particularly like it. His black jeans rubbed against his legs on the bare floor uncomfortably, sweat licking the inlets of his limbs. He’d had rather have had his pants come into some other use than an incubator right about now.

He leaned back to look at the room. He was at Maren’s place, a studio apartment in one of the worst blocks in the city. You didn’t come here alone at night. Dan would have been scared if he hadn’t lived here for 3 months already.

The single light on the ground next to him was growing shadows, and he found himself falling into its darkness as the sun set.

Dan thought he heard a phone ring laying.

 _“What’s up? – U-huh – How many? – Okay, see ya–."_ There was a click. "Ee’s got some friends coming over.”

Dan didn’t listen much. His head was already a little soft when Maren and James brought out the _Bell’s_ whiskey and whatever else they wanted to do. He didn’t really feel like drinking much tonight.

“Mate, how much did you smoke?”

“I don’t know.” Dan didn’t.

“You better not have used it all.”

“I didn’t.” Dan didn’t.

Maren and James went back to the little wooden booze table, and Dan was left to look at the walled window that overlooked the dirty street. He got up and made it to the fresh air after three shots of James downing the _Bell’s_ and thought the air smelled like piss when he got there– only worse. He was glad his lungs were still filled with the stuff, deep breaths reverberated only the earthy smell of the pot. He hated college. Law school made him want to kill himself. He was glad it all smelled a little like lavender.

“Is that _them_?” Dan dragged his head down the pane and stuck his head out of the window. Below him, a group of people made their way across the street. There were two boys and girl, and he wondered how long it actually took him to get to the door. The light of the liquor store across shone onto the backs and Dan thought it was an immeasurable blessing that he could wear more than one color in this world. One of the group was tall. He was cute and it made Dan laugh inside.

Dan wanted to tell Maren and James he thought one of them was cute and laugh with them, but he kept it in because they didn’t really know about _that_  with him. That made Dan sad. Maybe when they were drunk it wouldn’t matter anymore. He liked having sex whilst drunk.

Dan remembered he wasn’t drinking tonight. He slid out of the windows pane and back onto the bare floor numbly. He wondered if sex high was any good. Maybe.

Dan could barely hear the group walk up the small studio's stairs with the sound of the stereo filling his head and seeping the two halves into a foggy taciturn of _Hey There's–_

“Dan’s not much of a talker.”

He found himself pulling his red _University of Manchester_ hoodie sleeves over his hands like makeshift mittens until he realized it was hot. He took it off and wondered why he even brought it. Then he realized he had taken his shirt off by accident and put it back on, laughing while he pulled the old band shirt back on.

Everything was very nice despite the heat. He closed his eyes and heard a heavy bass being played. He was warm.

School was dumb. He had to study long words until his eyes bled and it made him want to scrunch his paper up into a billion little pieces like snow and scatter them all over the city and make everyone else pick them up and learn it and take his tests for him. He thought about all the little pieces tripping old snots up stairs and all his evil professors, and it made him laugh thinking about Dr. Preston’s skirts flying up amidst all his million paper white pieces. He grew his smile to himself until he felt like people were watching him in the corner, and then he smiled wetly against his hand and let it cover his whole face. Little million pieces of dumb law. He let the air in his lungs come up as laughs.

“What song is this?”

“Dan wakes from his sleep.”

That made him laugh. “Stop,” he said smiling madly. “What song is this,” he begged.

“I think it’s called _Energy_.”

Dan opened his eyes. He was glad of the single light in the room and it’s deep shadows, and the _It’s gonna be alright!_ _We’re gonna see the sunlight!’_ s that wrapped all around all them like the tightest blanket in the world. He saw the little group around the booze table and he saw the big white smoke and a face that looked like blades and putty, so he opened his eye like they were marbles to try and catch the tall one's eye.

The one he had opened his eyes for had dark hair. He looked familiar. But he had a face that Dan thought was special. Dan thought his nose look like a birds beak.

“Beak beak chirp–” he whispered out with a smile.

The bird nose looked over now. He couldn’t hear them over the music, but he saw the guy lean over and whisper to the girl before nodding and smiling a bit, and Dan laughed because his smile was so full. He remembered _that_ was the guy he saw walking over and thought was cute. Dan was so glad he had a nice smile.

He shook his head as if to say “What?”

He had hair all straight and black and long like all those emo wannabes on myspace. Dan wanted to be a myspace boy. He also really wanted to kiss him. Dan laughed because he liked boys and he liked their lips and he liked how close they felt across the room despite being miles apart.

Dan watched on the couch the bird beak take a hit and blow up to the heavens, white smoke circling around his neck like a carousel the same pale color and the little inlets of his Adam's apple appearing and disappearing through the fog. Dan liked watching people blow out. They always looked like they were about to come or something. Phil passed the bong to the girl next to him and closed his eyes, smiling with his full smile. Dan was glad that music was only little invisible vibrations that couldn’t hide him from his vision now.

Dan watched the group smile and talk, and one started rambling so he waited for bird beak to look over again– and eventually he did. Dan smiled at him.

The cute guy smiled back and Dan noticed this time he stuck his tongue between his teeth. He that was the funniest thing in the whole god damn world. He loved people sometimes.

Dan wanted him to laugh again. He moved his head with the music, filling the spaces of sound with funny faces and wild hands. He didn’t want to close his eyes because he wanted to see him smile.

Phil smiled again, heavier and heavier, softer and sweeter.

Finally, he saw the guy mouth _come here_ with a smile. Dan inched himself up onto his feet and walked until he sat down next to one of the newcomers. He was across the way from bird beak.

“Hi I’m Dan.”

He wasn’t usually social like this, but seeing everyone get to talk to each other without him was making him unusually sad.

“Hi Dan,” they all chorused back. James took it a step further and told everyone how long Dan had been in that corner, but Dan ignored him. It _definitely_ hadn’t been 2 hours. What a load of shit.

“Isn’t it a great night?” Dan smiled at bird beak.

“You told me the place smelled like piss.”

“Maren. Oh Maren. You need to learn some irony.”

Bird beak laughed.

“You have a really pretty laugh– I think,” Dan added an _I think_ because he couldn’t let him know how much he liked him. “The music is very loud for me so I couldn’t hear you over there,” Dan tried to explain, despite feeling still pretty high.

“I figured that.” His voice was a little hoarse from the smoke, and Dan thought it was _very_ nice. He sort of wanted to have sex with him, but more like kiss him a lot. He was a little tired already.

“I think I want to know your name.”

“My name is Phil.”

“Phil— Phil—” Dan repeated to himself, letting Maren’s smoke next to him wash against his face. He thought it smelled like lavender this time. “Phil like nympho- _phil-_ ia. Or pedo- _phil-_ ia. Does your name mean like, _a lot_?”

“Phil means love.”

Dan felt himself grow hot inside. “Oh, that’s wonderful.”

“Yeah, I like it.”

“You guys get a room.”

There was an uneasy laugh and Dan leaned on the girl next to him to hide his face and pretend to sleep.

“I’m going to go the bathroom, I’ll be right b—”

“Me too.” Dan got up and started without him down the hall.

“Yes, please be gay somewhere else, Howell,” Maren stuttered out from the carpet.

That made Dan feel sort of sad. Maren thought he was straight. Maren thought Dan was a liar.

“Why did you follow me?”

Dan looked up from the mirror he found himself standing in front of. It was dirty and Dan saw a needle next to the toothbrush and it made him feel very sad. Phil closed the door and leaned against it, smiling dumbly. He was glad he never used needles.

“I wanted to talk to you, you know about like life– like _everything_.” He tried to show how important it was to him by putting his hands out and shaking them like he was drowning in the Atlantic Ocean.

“I need to pee.”

“Okay pee, but I want to talk to you, okay?” Dan sat on the counter and looked at himself in the dirty mirror while Phil went and finished. He looked at his eyes and played around with the dryness he felt in them. _Blink blink._ Red white brown in a row.

“Okay, so tell me it isn’t amazing how huge the universe is.”

Phil sat on the tub and smiled. _Blink blink._ His eyes were red white and blue. “Incredibly amazing.”

“And isn’t it sad that like I have to do work all the time? I can not believe I want to pitch myself off the library balcony every other day, and that I want to cry and that I don’t get to be me. Just— being is so encompassing. I think that is _so_ nice. I can be very sad but I can also be anything. I can smoke and feel space in my blood, and I can talk to you all alone and... I don’t like Maren. You are so much better. You’re very happy compared to him. Maren makes me feel all anxious. Also, I think Maren hates me. I lie to him. Oh man, I lied to him so bad! Phil, what am I going to do? I just want to keep feeling all of this and not have Maren know I’m a big liar.”

“What did you lie about?”

“Well, you see,” Dan began, trying to keep his mind on the question but failing miserably. He thought his words fit though. “I like everybody. I think that boys are _very_ nice. I like when they have nice shoulders and lips and all of that. Maren thinks I have a girlfriend back home still. I don’t like looking at boys when he’s with me because I think he’s going to find out and hate me.” Dan sat up straighter all of a sudden. “It’s remarkable we can live in a universe so vast so big there’s like two big clouds against each other of feelings and I’m not supposed to like you. That makes me sad. I want to love you like all the stars in my bones right now.”

“How do you know I’m gay?”

“Maren said Ee was always hanging around queers.”  
  
“Oh.”

“I don’t like Maren.”

“I don’t think I do either.”

There was a pause.

“Aren’t you that guy from YouTube?”

“Yes, actually I am.”

“Oh shit, wow.” Dan tried to act cool but ended up leaning on his hand for physical support rather than the  _ego_ support he had wanted. He felt his cheek slide against his knuckles like putty. “I watch your videos sometimes. I want to make some but you’re so much better.”

“You shouldn’t say that. All video are very different and everyone is very different. We should celebrate that.”

Dan liked how nice Phil was.

“You act really flirty and whorish, no offense. Are you with someone? Because I think I’d be very jealous.”

Phil laughed, for a really long time, and bit his lip until Dan wanted to kiss it. “I’m not, unfortunately.”

“I’m sorry,” Dan said, because he was. Phil was handsome. “I’d date you, if it makes you feel better.” He wouldn’t have usually had this kind of confidence but he realized at this moment nothing really mattered anymore. He could get arrested and kicked out of Uni and he would A-Okay with it. Things were going to alright, he thought, talking to Phil.

“You’re funny.”

“I would!” Dan assured. “I broke up with that girl I told Maren about months ago. He doesn’t even know her name.”

Phil looked down dumbly and blushed before falling into hysterics. “I want to paint you.”

“Can you paint?”

“No.”

Dan laughed until it grew into a roar. “You’re such a liar!”

“You too!”

Dan got off the sink and sat on the bathroom floor, taking Phil’s hands and playing with them. “You have skinny hands.”

Phil ignored him. “If I had paint, I’d paint you purple.”

Dan liked how Phil made him into a color. He imagined himself all purple and dark and mysterious in the plasma universe under his skin.

Phil got up. “Let’s go get paint and I’ll paint you!”

“Maren doesn’t have paint,” but Phil was already leaving.

Dan leaned against the tub and laughed again because it was okay he was a liar. He was going to love Phil forever because he felt very _not-alone_ , even though Phil was out of the room a million miles away. He liked the fact that he knew that he was going to come right back, and he liked that they were going to laugh together again and talk about the universe for years again when he came back until they fell asleep or they kissed or something like that.

“I found a sharpie.” Phil came back in and shut and locked the door. He undid the cap and started drawing a bad picture of Dan with big eyes on the dirty white walls. His hands were shaky.

“You’re an artist.”

Phil laughed. “We’re all artists.”

Dan laughed because it was dumb, but he stopped because he thought maybe Phil was right. “You know, maybe you’re right. Like I can’t draw, you know– like I can’t draw at all. But I feel like everything. That’s what artists do. They make you feel. I think— I think— I think I am an artist. I feel very much– _a lot._ I’m an artist.”

“This is fantastic!” Phil marveled at his little drawings on the wall, ignoring him again. There was the one of Dan, one of a lion beneath that, and a picture of a show with long strings. There also one with a person in a shoe. “That’s me.”

“What if we lived in shoes instead of houses? How would we use the laces?”

Dan realized Phil wasn’t as gone as him. He looked over at him with concern.

“Do you always think this hard, even when you’re high?”

“I don’t know. I guess so.”

“What are you at school for?”

“I’m here for a _Law Degree._ That means I have to read hard books that make my eyes want to bleed all over the papers.”  
  
“Are you okay?” Phil took the sharpie and started to draw on Dan’s hands. He heard a little metal tint to it. Phil was _serious_.

“I don’t think so, but don’t worry, okay, I have friends.”  
  
“I thought you hated Maren.”

“Oh shit— Oh shit you know.” Dan felt himself start to feel bad inside. He took Phil’s hand and placed them by his cheeks before pressing them over his eyes to hide.

“I did that because you calm me down. You are a good friend.”

Phil smiled and took the sharpie back up again, this time drawing on Dan’s arm. “I’m going to draw little flowers on you, and they’re going to protect you.”  
  
“That’s so nice.” He felt himself catch another wave of the smoke from under the door. It was thick in the tiny studio, and Dan let himself succumb to it. He liked the lavender beneath the musk of it all. He lay down in Phil lap and let the pen tracing against his arms calm him down.

“It is very crazy to think about the whole universe.”

“I can’t imagine.”

“I told you I can feel it in bones, right? My blood is the universe.”

“You have a pretty mind, Dan.”

“Your hair smells like lavender, hah–”

Phil was over Dan’s face now, drawing little wet lines over his face. His black hair tickled his neck.

“You smell like it too.”

Dan smiled. “Oh, it’s like we’re together.”

“Exactly.”

“Phil, I don’t think anything is real.”

“That’s okay. Me either.”

Dan lay in his lap for years, feeling the sticky heat from his forehead deepen with Phil’s hands against his face. He was a little rough, but Dan liked how his face was getting pulled and pushed against the pen. It was nice when he found himself getting sleepy, his universe-bones turning to lead. Before he knew it, Phil was helping him off with his shirt, the heat too much for him. He could hear the stereo through the thin white door, a bright musty mix of music enveloping the both of them.

“I like this song. It’s called Sun Medallion. Do you like it?” Dan muttered out feebly, sleep snatching him in purple waves.

“I do.”

“Why won’t you answer me more–I think you’re the best person ever.”

“Shh, I’m trying to protect you with my flowers.”

“Oh, okay then.” Dan didn’t really understand him. He didn’t care. “I think I’m going to start making videos. That would be fun, huh?”  
  
“It would be. We could make some videos together too– _if you want_.” The sharpie next to his lip shook a little.

“That would be nice.”  
  
“It would be.”

The song out the door was seeping through the spaces of the wall, and he liked how green and blue and yellow it all felt. He took the pen out of Phil hands and used 1000 volts of energy to bring his hands up to touch his hair again. He liked how long it was swept against his cheeks.

“I think you’re cute with your hair.” It took all his mind trying to fight the clouds in his brain to say it.

Phil smiled and pushed Dan’s fringe back. “You sure you’re not just saying that because we have the same haircut?”

“No,” Dan answered honestly, “I think you are cute with like—your skinny hands and your red white and blue eyes. I like it when you touch me. You calm me down. You’re the first person to ever do that— I think. I can’t believe we met through an ass like _Maren_. You’re so much better. Oh man, Phil, I like you _so much_ — like even as a friend you are _so good_ —”

The sharpie on his face stuttered against his cheek. Phil was nervous.

He hadn’t meant it sexually. He wanted anything in the world except _sex_ right now. He was very tired and just wanted to sleep next to him right now. Maybe tomorrow, though, if things worked out.

“I think you’re very pretty too."

Dan heard Phil through the fog with his heavy laugh, probably the one with the tongue under his teeth by the sound of it. It made Dan’s cheeks warm.

_Let go of your body–_

Dan was in the music. He couldn’t feel anything in his head except big lavender clouds and the universe with Phil right beneath him, but even that was secondary to the sound from the stereo. It was in the music —because that’s where Dan thought he was— in the drums and in the bass, and in the little strum of the guitar, between the vocals of reality and a dream, where Dan moved up and pressed his lips to Phil’s.

Phil smiled down on him. “I think you missed a little.” He pointed to the corner of his mouth where Dan had kissed him by accident. He brought his head back to Dan’s and let him try again.

He was warm.

_I tell you now–_

“There you go.”

_I love you–_


End file.
